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If you rent a bike from Citi Bike in New York this week (and look carefully) you might notice something new: some of the bikes are now made in Detroit. The company that manages the bike-share program—along with many of the other major bike-share networks in the country—has decided to start manufacturing bicycles in the U.S.

In part, that's because bike share is growing quickly, and Motivate, the company that runs the programs, wanted to be able to respond equally quickly with production. As recently as two years ago, bike share was struggling; Motivate, then known as Alta, was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it wasn't clear if fledgling bike-share fleets would all survive. Executives from Equinox and Related took over the company, renamed it, and turned things around.

If you rent a bike from Citi Bike in New York this week (and look carefully) you might notice something new: some of the bikes are now made in Detroit. The company that manages the bike-share program—along with many of the other major bike-share networks in the country—has decided to start manufacturing bicycles in the U.S.

In part, that's because bike share is growing quickly, and Motivate, the company that runs the programs, wanted to be able to respond equally quickly with production. As recently as two years ago, bike share was struggling; Motivate, then known as Alta, was on the verge of bankruptcy, and it wasn't clear if fledgling bike-share fleets would all survive. Executives from Equinox and Related took over the company, renamed it, and turned things around.

In New York City, Citi Bike will double in size by 2017. In the San Francisco Bay Area, bike share is growing 10-fold. D.C. is adding 50 new bike-share stations. Chicago's program has grown 60% this year. Smaller cities, such as Columbus, Ohio, are adding bike-share systems. The list goes on.

As cities expand their fleets, Motivate decided to revamp production. "We were looking for tighter quality control," says Jay Walder, the company's new CEO, who previously ran city transit systems in both New York and Hong Kong. "It's a heck of a lot easier to visit a vendor in Detroit than it is to visit a vendor in China. It actually saves us costs in doing it."

Detroit-made bicycles can also be made and delivered more quickly. Motivate is partnering with Detroit Bikes—currently the only large-scale bike manufacturer located in the U.S.—which set up a new production line just to handle bike-share bikes.